The Pint Shop is a new art installation and shopping experience created by the Museum of Ice Cream to help promote their new Target collaboration. It's like a baby Museum of Ice Cream, essentially. It just opened up yesterday and you bet your bottom dollar I hopped my little ass there today on my day off. It's running from now until August so make sure you stop by before it's gone!
For those of you who don't know, the Museum of Ice Cream is an interactive art installation that consists of several rooms with different themes, colors, props and sensory experiences. It's an artist's vision of how ice cream brings people together and makes them instantly happy, brought to life in a dream world like playground. It originated in summer of 2016 in NYC, but ironically I did not get to experience the NYC location. I didn't hear about it until after it was sold out and ended for the summer. But from what I read, it wasn't that great back then in its beginnings. The NYC version was the modest one and generally considered overpriced. I honestly can't tell since I never made it there. But the following summer, they opened an LA location and I was able to make it to that one in the fall for my birthday. And that one, I can tell you was awesome. I've never seen or experienced anything like it. My favorite experiences were the sprinkle pool, the giant gummy bears and the ice cream sandwich swing. It was a lot of fun and I really hope to one day be able to attend the San Francisco location before that one gets closed down too. The Miami one opened last winter and has since closed as well. It's on the move to its next mystery location currently but this Pint Shop was a return to its roots for the summer. It's also notable that it's free compared to it's MOIC big sister counterparts.
I stopped by today with my friends and family and it was so much fun! I loved it and I look forward to going back there again with my friend Kayla and Kerri later on this summer so they can both experience it. And well I'm the ice cream queen.
The Pint Shop itself is filled with 6 aisles of cute merchandise, dedicated to the 7 unique flavors being promoted by this unique experience. The flavors will drop in Target stores July 8th. A line of children's clothing and accessories recently launched in Target this past week as well.
The aisles are beautifully lined with adorable merch and albeit a little overpriced in my opinion, still ridiculously cute and unique to the company's brand. The cheapest thing you can purchase actually are the pints of ice cream themselves. And yes, they have a tasting station where you can taste all the flavors before purchasing, as long as they are in stock. Today I tried Vanillionaire, Chocolate Crush, Churro Churro and Cherrylicious. Cherrylicious was my favorite. It tasted like a nice hint of cherry and not like that artificial medicine cherry counterpart I hate. Nana Banana, Pinata and Sprinkle Pool weren't available to try but alas, not to worry! I will back and update you guys. I didn't take a pint home though since it wouldn't survive the trip home from NYC to Long Island before becoming ice cream soup.
The items you can buy include keychains, pins, yoga mats, lunch bags, tote bags, tumblers, stainless steel water bottles, backpacks, ice cream pop makers, hats, plushes, and even sprinkle crowns. And yes, everything is a little expensive than one would expect. The sprinkle crown was definitely unnecessarily expensive but you bet your bottom dollar I bought it because YOLO.
One side of the shop was filled with aisles of merchandise, with the middle of the room containing the freezers filled with the pints you can buy, and on the other side resided three life sized pints for cute photo ops; one was a smaller lite version of the banana room from LA, one was a sprinkle pool swing, and one was a cherry pool. Of course these giant pints were where there were the longest lines and waits. Mostly the cherry pool, which is funny since that was the case with the sprinkle pool in LA.
The shop is free to look around and browse at your leisure but they do also offer tasting experiences which are ticketed experiences and $38 a pop for 30 minutes and grant you access to the shop without waiting on line outside. I haven't yet decided if I wanted to participate in this but they are also offering "pint sessions" later this summer although details regarding them have yet to be released. And although free, the Pint Shop, similar to the MOIC, is a controlled experience, meaning they only allow a certain amount of people in at a time to help keep the experience at a comfortable level. I like this since it helps prevent overcrowding and you can get the best pictures without too many people in your shot this way. Everyone was really nice and it was a really fun time. I would love to go back.
I would have to say this is my favorite of the interactive "rooms" trend. I visited the Egg House about a month and a half ago, and while still fun and interesting, I would have to say it's overpriced for what it offered compared to MOIC and the Pint Shop. I'll blog about the Egg House later on this month when I get a chance. I still have to move all my 20,000+ photos off my phone onto my computer. It's been a process.
I'll try to blog about the MOIC in LA if I can find and upload those pics too.
Ironically, the Pint Shop was not the focal point of my adventure today originally. I was supposed to finally make it over to Mister Dips. I've been trying to go there since last summer but never seem to make my way fully over there. I didn't mean to spend so much time at the Pint Shop considering how small it is in comparision to the MOIC, but it really is a lot to take in on the first visit and I didn't want to leave. Here are pics from earlier in the day when I ventured around the city with my baby sis while waiting for everyone else to get out of work to join.
We went to lunch at Gemma, originally planning on trying a rigatoni dish we saw on the gram but upon arrival learned that the dish has been discontinued and no longer available for the season. The waiter recommended the pappardelle to us and oh man, it was amazing. 10/10 would have again. The pizza was really good too. We finished everything and headed down to Milk and Cream to try their Birthday Cake before they discontinued that special too. We browsed some shops and art galleries on the way there too since we were waiting for everyone else to get out. As you can see, I'm still immature AF.
What about you? Do you guys plan on exploring anything or visiting the Pint Shop this summer???